Slides Upside Down

[Bubby Grub]

Hi to Everyone,
I'm the second half to "Little Nac".
Firstly I would like to say what a fantastic site this is, and as my hubby said yesterday, we have certainly learnt a few things since we joined a couple of days ago. Thanks a lot, and keep up the great work.
Now I have a quick question that I hope you may be able to help me with.
I do the slide shows and Little Nac does the Videos.
After reading some of your threads I may have the answer, but here goes anyway.
We both have identical computers.

Windows XP Pro SP3
Pentium 4 dual core 3.00GHz.
4 Gig of Ram
Two 500Gb hard drives with one dedicated to the project.
2 DVD Burners
5.1 surround sound card
512Mb Dual Graphics Card
24" LCD Samsung Monitor Plus a 17" LCD Samsung Monitor

After working in PE4 for several minutes, my photos will either tip upside down or go all black. I have to save my work (if it allows me to) and go out of the program, and then go back in.
Other times it will say "Adobe PE has a caused a problem and needs to close".
Everything seems OK upto about 45 minutes, but when the project gets over this time this is when the trouble starts.
The project I have just finished runs for 77 minutes and has burnt 2 copies to a DVD with no problems. They both play great through the TV.
Maybe my pictures are far too big. The friend I did the DVD for gave us the pictures from his Digital Camera as 2592x1944, but I reduced them down in a program called Faststone Photo resizer to 1280x960.
Is this size still far too big for PE.
I also see that many people seem to use Photoshop for doing up Slide Shows, but I do mine directly into PE4 as I need all the effects etc. Is this OK?
Just thought of a couple of other quick questions. Hope this is OK.
We used to use PE3 and were able to drag the work screen over to our second Monitor, but PE4 won't allow this. Any reason why?
Also is there any way we can get 5.1 surround sound with PE?
Thanks for all your help.
Talk soon.

[ATR]

First, the easy part. You can import 5.1 channel sound into Premiere Elements 7, but there is no way to export it as 5.1 channel. Whether your export is to burn to disc, or a Personal Computer export, the best you can do is 2 channel (Dolby Digital, Stereo).

With your computers, you need to look at
Installed RAM vs Available RAM
Total Hard Drive Space vs Available Hard Drive Space
That 512 MB Dual Graphic Card may be of the shared variety which will take away from your resources.
How is your virtual memory set up, by Windows XP or you?
Dual Monitors might be redirecting resources.

In spite of what looks like impressive computer specs, your problem sound a lot like computer resource problems...do a check out, clean up in that regard. The usual figure given for "not to exceed" pixel dimensions is 1000 x 750. Your figure of 1280 x 960 does not seem "that" extreme, but if you have a lot of photos, a 77 minute video, and diminishing resources, that could spell trouble. When you get to the Burn Dialog (have a DVD disc in the DVD burner tray), look at the values in the Burn Dialog Quality Area for Space Required and Bitrate. If the bitrate is lower than 8, then the program is laboring to fit the content to disc and, in doing so, the final quality will be less.

There is no reason that you cannot produce a great slideshow in Premiere Elements alone. But remember Premiere Elements is the video editor, and Photoshop is the photo editor. Some people like the user friendly pans & zooms and fit audio to slides features of Photoshop Elements Slideshow Editor. Premiere Elements has other ways to handle those features.

As for dragging the Premiere Elements 4 work window from one to another Monitor, try minimizing the Window and trying it, and let me know what happens.

I have not run into the photo resizer that you mentioned. Many here have Photoshop Elements, so I usually suggest Photoshop Elements/File Menu/Process Multiple Files route.

Hope that I covered just about everything. If not, please do not hesitate to let me know how I can help.

ATR

[ATR]

Add on....

My initial comment about 5.1 channel sound, no export for...goes for Premiere Elements as well...

ATR

[ATR]

Add on to the add on...

that should have been better put, Premiere Elements 4 as well....

ATR

[Bubby Grub]

My Ram is set up by Windows as I would not know how to change that.
My available Ram is just over 2Gb, and my HD Drive is 500Gb with 349Gb available. This is with my completed project still there also with all the Narration & Slides in their various directories.
Maybe I said the wrong thing about the work area. I actually mean the viewing Monitor. I tried minimizing and dragging it but to no avail. It just drags the whole screen across. It is possible in PE3.
Thanks again.

[ATR]

Good Morning

In Premiere Elements 4, go to and click on the Window Menu at the top of the interface. From the drop down list select Show Docking Headers.

Click and drag the Monitor Header into the second Monitor.

Please let me know if that works for you. I have road tested it with my Premiere Elements 4, and it works that way for me.

The upside down and black slides do sound like a resource problem in spite of your computer specs and your reported use of appropriately resized photos.
Your computer/Premiere Elements 4 (a 32 bit application) will not utilize more than 4 GB RAM. And, as you see the installed RAM 4 GB was reduced to 2 GB available in your computer system. Please let me know how frequently these upside down and black slides are occurring, every project, certain projects,... and if you see a trend with regard to their happening and project details related to Timeline content and/or available computer resources.

If you have not already, optimize your computer and see if that makes an impact on the issue.

ATR